VeriFone Systems completed the acquisition of Point payment and gateway services and solutions for retailers. With operations in 11 European countries, Point serves a captive network encompassing almost 475,000 merchant contracts to give retailers a full range of multi-channel services and solutions, including point-of-sale technology and support, gateway services, card encryption services, and e-commerce processing. VeriFone intends to extend the Point platform to create the world’s largest infrastructure for rapid deployment of alternative payments and NFC mobile commerce.

SmartMetric is set to acquire its manufacturing plant in Buenos Aires, which will allow the company to proceed with its Latin American production of advanced electronic fingerprint activated Smart Cards for the Banking, Medical Insurance, Government Identity and many other markets and applications. Manufacturing in South America presents valuable benefits for the company while providing a favorable export base for Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and North America.

State Bank of India cancelled a proposed merchant acquiring business joint venture with US-based Elavon Incorporation and Visa International. Negotiations were canceled for establishing a JV entity with Visa Inc and Elavon Inc for conducting the merchant acquiring business, which would involve facilitation of payments through debit or credit cards at retail outlets. The Reserve Bank of India had already approved the setting up of a wholly owned subsidiary by SBI in the name of SBI Payment Services for conducting the merchant acquiring business. The proposed joint venture between SBI Payment Services Pvt Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of SBI), Visa Inc and Elavon Inc was first mooted in 2010, it said.

[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”0″ ihc_mb_template=”1″] Credit card APRs for December broke 15% for the first time in 2011, the highest since 2008 before dropping to a rock bottom 12.64% in 2010. Throughout 2011, rates have consistently increased since the June average of 14.83% and now sit at record highs, currently at 15.14%, up .15% from last…

Citi announced the first Facebook application from a loyalty program that is both a rewarding and social experience: the Citi ThankYou® Point Sharing App. This new Facebook app makes it easy for ThankYou® Rewards members who are Facebook friends to pool their points together, and use their points’ collective value towards a shared goal or reward. ThankYou members on Facebook can combine their points to make a charitable donation, or choose from millions of rewards on www.thankyou.com, from travel to electronics. To celebrate the ThankYou Point Sharing App launch, Citi is giving 10 million ThankYou points to qualifying ThankYou members on Facebook. The first 4,000 ThankYou members to link the ThankYou Point Sharing App to their personal Facebook page before 11:59 p.m. ET on February 3, 2012 will receive 2,500 ThankYou points courtesy of Citi. They can use the 2,500 points towards a number of individual rewards, such as digital books and music downloads. To participate, individuals must be a Citi ThankYou Rewards member and link the ThankYou Point Sharing App to their personal Facebook page. ThankYou members who are awarded 2,500 points will see them in their ThankYou account within 72 hours after it has been linked to the Facebook app.

Mobile payment solution company MOBIbucks is launching its cardless/cashless payment service in the Levant region, having forged a deal with Middle East Payment Services (MEPS)- a consortium of seven Arab Banks providing payment processing services in the Middle East. The partnership will bring to the Middle East the MOBIbucks solution, letting customers make purchases using just their cell phone number, without the need for a card, cash, or event the mobile phone to be present.

Barnes International announced an updated personalisation test module that complies with the latest Visa Global Personalization Requirements (GPR). The new module complements Barnes’ existing tests for Visa Specifications incorporated in its Card Personalisation Validation Tools (CPT 3000v3 and CAT 3000v3). The test tools offer comprehensive evaluation of a chip product to ensure it will meet industry and payment scheme certification standards. This significantly reduces a product’s time to market as the chip is aligned to Visa Specifications throughout the development lifecycle and before applying for official Visa approval.

1st Capital Bank selected First Data electronic commerce and payment processing to power its online banking services. First Data’s Online Banking solution offers 1st Capital Bank’s account holders the ability to manage their finances efficiently and securely, with state-of-the-art security features and financial management tools, through an interface that creates the feeling of a true virtual branch.

Harbortouch POS systems launched its “Elite” free point-of-sale system program. Featuring a sleeker look, all-in-one design and more powerful processor, the “Elite” is designed to meet the needs of a broader range of businesses and incorporates a state-of-the-art processor, increased storage space and highly-responsive touch-screen display into a durable and attractive form factor for exceptional speed, productivity and style. Lines include “Harbortouch Hospitality,” with countless time and money saving features perfect for fine dining, casual or quick service restaurants while “Harbortouch Retail” offers new and improved retail management functionality with an integrated color/size/style matrix, support for rentals and consignment, robust customer and inventory management and more.

CardPaymentOptions.com has reviewed the credit card processor Merchant Focus and issued the merchant services company an A rating. The review focused on their sales tactics, marketing practices, fees, overall costs, as well as merchant complaints. Merchant Focus received A ratings in all of the above named categories, which shows remarkable overall business practices compared to many of their competitors within the credit card processing industry. The highest marks came from their sales and marketing techniques (A+) due to their lack of deceptive advertising. Also month-to-month contracts and no cancellation fee benefit merchants without locked into long-term contracts.

Teamwork Retail customers now enjoy checkout at iPads on the sales floor through PaymentSite. The partnership also allows associates to bring up any inventory in the store and also shows items available in all other stores in the chain. Teamwork Retail not only manages inventory, purchasing, receiving, analytics and management reporting as well. Since Paymentsite is packaged into the software, a merchant can process payments anywhere, accept signatures on-screen, and email or wirelessly print receipts. Teamwork Retail forged its payments partnership through Maas Global Solutions.